


Conditions of the Transport

by Captain_AK



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Female John Watson, Female Sherlock Holmes, Gen, Genderbending, Hurt Sherlock, I hate giving away spoilers in the tags, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV John Watson, Pregnancy, Rule 63, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlock Whump, Sick Sherlock, Whump, i like that tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_AK/pseuds/Captain_AK
Summary: Sherlock considers her brain superior to its transport.  Now, however, the transport is demanding her attention.Female Sherlock and John.





	1. Observations

**Author's Note:**

> This idea occurred to me like three days ago and here it is. Ta da. There will be more chapters. :) Eventually. :) :) When I write them. :) :) :)
> 
> Thanks to my eternal beta reader, @captainsteviegracerogers on Tumblr.

A few months before her wedding, Johanna H. Watson asked her best friend to be the maid of honor.

Being familiar with her by this point, Jo had essentially anticipated the reaction...shock.  Surprise. A bit of alarm. Even the blank expression on her best friend’s face had not been unexpected.

What _had_ thrown her, however, was that—upon hearing the question—Sherlock only stared.  Without blinking.

For five solid minutes.

“Sherlock?”

Nothing.

“...Sherlock.”

It was as if the enormous brain beneath that head of dark curls had simply shut down.

“That’s...getting a bit scary now.”

Jo timed it.  It was, on official record, the longest amount of time that Sherlock Holmes had ever spent simultaneously conscious, and silent.  An impressive feat; one that was not likely to ever be repeated.

Or so Jo had thought.

She came home from the market on a rainy afternoon to find Sherlock not at her desk; not in the kitchen, boiling human ears; not at the window, with her violin; not even in her armchair.  The detective, in pajama pants and a blue dressing gown, was sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back to the wall. Staring into space.

Jo stopped in the entry, laden with grocery bags, and studied her.  As she watched, something small and thin disappeared up Sherlock’s sleeve, but that was the only movement.  “You okay? Sherlock?”

Nothing.  Sherlock’s face was blank, just like on that day so many months before.

After discerning that the detective would continue to be unresponsive, Jo sighed, and carried her groceries into the kitchen.  In the bloody mind palace, probably. Sherlock had been known to stay in her own head for hours at a time. But, still…

As Jo went about her business, glancing at Sherlock occasionally...she would have sworn that those pale crystal eyes weren’t staring blankly.  They were staring in fear.

Sherlock snapped out of her reverie hours later.  When she moved, it wasn’t with her usual wild alacrity--with the combustion of a grenade, wrapped up in the careful precision of a bowstring.  Sherlock’s every movement was tightly controlled. It was _slow_.

Jo had lived with Sherlock for so long that she was now, essentially, numb to all manner of strange things.  A ‘quiet Saturday’ in 221B was more likely to mean shouting, and the screeching of violins, than actual silence.  So the sudden normality that Sherlock displayed set Jo’s teeth on edge.

It was in the way Sherlock mumbled a ‘hello’ to Jo, and sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop.  No deductions. No snarky comments. Just typing. Slowly.

She kept a close eye on Sherlock for the rest of the day.  Jo couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew in her gut that something very, very strange was going on.

* * *

Other red flags emerged--so slowly, and so far apart, that Jo didn’t think to pin them together.

She should have.  But she didn’t.

Jo noticed, one day when they went out, that Sherlock didn’t seem so strikingly tall.  Looking up at the detective, she frowned.

“Have you stopped wearing heels?”

“They were making my back hurt.”  A glower.

...Odd.

Sherlock’s shoes had never caused any problems before; none that Jo had ever noticed.  She was a doctor; she would have noticed, wouldn’t she?

And it wasn’t like Sherlock to pass up the opportunity of being the tallest person in the room (a good coat and a short friend, indeed).  She said that people listened to her more when she was taller.

Something--a quiet thought--niggled at the back of Jo’s thoughts.  She didn’t dwell on it, and quickly dismissed it altogether.

* * *

Sherlock started _eating_.

It was so gradual a process that Jo almost missed it.  First, Sherlock was slipping out for a midnight snack...asking for a second cup of tea (instead of chugging down the first one, and running out the door).

And suddenly, as if by magic, Jo was faced with a Sherlock Holmes who ate full plates at meals.  Piles of toast at breakfast. A sandwich for lunch. More than two bites of takeaway at dinner.

She finally noticed during the dinner.  Sherlock was sitting across from her, stuffing her cheeks with lo mein, but far more concentrated on the text she was sending with her other hand.  (Whomever she was texting, they had been at it for over an hour.)

Jo stared at Sherlock’s plate--at the noodles that were, still, rapidly being inhaled--and up to the detective’s face, in shock.

Sherlock sighed at her without looking up.  “... _what_.”

“Nothing," Jo said quickly.  "Nothing.  Just...Hungry?”

Sherlock looked up to give Jo a narrow stare.  She resumed her texting without any explanation.

Jo couldn’t deduce like Sherlock, and she knew that.  But she was still quite observant.

And an alarm was beginning to sound in the back of her head.

* * *

The mixed scents of vinegar, motor oil, and animal fat were wafting out of the kitchen.

Jo really, _really_ didn’t want, or need, to know.

Though the smells were no more pungent than usual...there weren’t usually so _many_ of them.  Sherlock had been whipping up experiments in a wilder frenzy than usual.  One moment, she’d been thoughtfully composing on her violin; the next, she was dashing into the kitchen, throwing pots on every stove eye and containers on every flat surface for her unusual (macabre) scientific investigations.

The detective busied herself over the stove, in her pajamas, with her hair twisted back.  She was concocting a strange mixture in one of Jo’s heavy cast-iron pots when, suddenly, the smell intensified.

Sherlock stopped.

The next thing Jo knew, Sherlock had dropped her mixing spoon and was racing out of the kitchen, her dressing gown flying out behind her.  She barreled into the bathroom.

Jo nearly knocked over her laptop in her haste to follow.  “Sherlock, are you alright? Did you burn yourself again?” Gently she opened the door, and found Sherlock retching into the toilet.

Jo hurriedly snatched up the dark mass of curly hair, pulling it out of the way.  As she rubbed soothing circles into her friend’s back, a pit formed in Jo’s stomach.

“Sherlock,” she asked, straining to keep her voice even, “have you taken something?”

 _“What?”_  Her face popped up from the toilet, pale and shaky.  She glared at Jo. _“No.”_

“If you have, I need to know,” Jo pressed, her doctor voice commanding.

Sherlock gave her a mutinous expression.   _“No._  I am--”  She gagged, and fell back over the toilet.  “...c-c- _clean_. _”_  
After heaving once more, Sherlock sat back.  She wiped a hand across her mouth.

Jo pressed her lips together.  She handed her friend a cup of water.  “So, then, what the hell was that?”

Sherlock gulped it down, and gasped.  “...the smell,” she said. “Raw meat, and chemicals.”

Jo tried not to scoff.  But instead of questioning her, she bent down, studying Sherlock’s face and peering into both of her eyes.  They were clear. “...the _smell.”_

Shooting Jo a tired glare, Sherlock got unsteadily to her feet.  Jo helped her, and took the opportunity to check for tell-tale marks along the detective’s pale arms.

“I am _clean,”_ Sherlock growled again.

“Alright...alright.”  Jo raised both hands in defeat.  “I believe you.”

Sherlock blinked, and nodded.  “Good.”

They stood there, in the middle of the bathroom, looking at each other.  Jo quietly flushed the toilet. Sherlock drank another glass of water, straightened her dressing gown, and swept out to the hall, back to her experiments.  “...don’t look under the bathroom sink,” she advised.

Jo sighed, rubbing her face.  Was it possible that Sherlock had slipped back into her old habits…?  This time, she was clean. But Jo had to watch her carefully.

* * *

Staring down the sight of her own pistol, Jo’s hand was completely steady.   _“Put her down!”_

Ten feet away, the man with his hand around Sherlock’s throat leered.  He held the detective up in front of his chest, both of them precariously close to the edge of the peer.  Icy waters crashed twenty feet below.

Sherlock gasped.

Jo could hear behind her the sound of tires squealing, doors slamming--Scotland Yard finally arriving to the siren call of Sherlock’s text ( _Shipping docks.  Bring reinforcements_ ).  They were fast, but Jo was faster.

She clicked the safety off, and several things happened at once.  Lestrade appeared, shouting. Sherlock’s foot slammed up into her assailant’s groin.  Jo’s bullet passed cleanly through his shoulder. And the man threw Sherlock away from him, as hard as he could, sending her crashing and rolling across the slippery dock.

Jo left the murderer to Scotland Yard, and lunged for Sherlock.

The detective had landed on a pile of empty shipping crates, which both softened and worsened her fall.  Already a bruise was forming on the column of her throat, taking the faint shape of a hand. She must have cut her forehead on one of the crates; it was slowly beginning to bleed.

“Sherlock, are you alright?”  Jo sat her up against the crates, and gave her the usual once-over.  “Have you broken anything?”

“No.”  Sherlock shook her head.  She had one arm wrapped over her abdomen.  “...perfectly alright.”

“Okay.”  Jo’s brow furrowed.  “You still need to go to hospital.  I’m sorry, I know you hate it. But there could be damage that we don’t--”

“Alright.”

Jo blinked.  “What-- _’alright’?”_

“Yes.”

Jo was only vaguely aware that her jaw dropped.

Sherlock Holmes had _never_ \--not once--voluntarily admitted herself to a hospital.  To hear her do so now was downright unnerving.

Sherlock grimaced.  Holding onto Jo’s arm for support, she levered slowly to her feet.  “Hospital...is a good idea.”

“Err,” Jo finally stammered, “alright.”

It was just another unusual change in Sherlock’s recent behavior--her newly-acquired habit of actually taking _care_ of herself.  Jo must have stepped into an alternate universe.

Sherlock nodded.  She allowed Jo to lead her slowly toward the police cars, and the ambulance.

As they neared the paramedics, with Sherlock walking willingly, rather than being dragged, Jo felt the need to ask.  “What in god’s name changed your mind?”

Whatever had caused the change, maybe it wasn’t so bad.  Not as concerning as Jo had thought, anyway...

“That fall,” Sherlock explained, “the sharp impact.”  Her free arm was still wrapped around her middle. “Hard enough that it could cause damage to an unborn fetus.”

...Nevermind.

Jo stopped.  She stared.

Sherlock was startled when the doctor’s hand tightened around her arm.

And Jo saw red—heard nothing over the roar between her ears.

_“...WHAT?”_


	2. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News has begun to spread.  
> (Sherlock blames Jo.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile!  
> Hope you all enjoyed reading the ch 1 cliffhanger. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

After a long night in the ER, it was mid-morning by the time they made it back to Baker Street.  Tired and crabby, Sherlock stomped inside, threw her coat on the rack, and curled up in a ball on the couch.

“That was tedious,” she muttered.

But Jo had been up all night, too.  And she wasn’t having it.

“Oh, right.  Well _excuse_ me,” she said, throwing the door shut behind her.  “ _So_ sorry to put you through all that.  You know, you could have avoided all those prenatal tests if you’d just _told me_ you were—”

Sherlock bolted upright on the couch.   _“Shh.”_

 _“NO_ , Sherlock!”  Jo marched across the room, pointing her finger in the detective’s face.  “Don’t you _dare_ shoosh me.  Do you know how dangerous that wa—...right, of course you do.  Don’t answer that.” She dropped her hand, rubbed it across her mouth.  Getting angry wasn’t going to help her here. “Okay...okay. When, exactly, did you plan on telling me about this?”

Sherlock raised her chin, looking away.  “...At the right moment.”

Jo had to count to five in her head.  “I’m a bloody doctor, Sherlock! The right moment to tell me was the moment you found out.  What the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“I knew what I was doing.  There’s no need for you to make all this fuss,” Sherlock said, shrugging.

“No need?”  Jo’s eye twitched.  “‘No need.’  Right.  It’s not like you’re _bloody pregnant_   _or anything.”_

 _“Shh!”_ Sherlock said again.

“Oh!”  Jo let out a humorless laugh.  “Right, of course. Still a secret, is it?”

 _"Yes_ , as a matter of fact,” Sherlock snapped.  “So if you could stop telling the whole world—”

“WHO DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HEAR ME, SHERLOCK?”

At precisely that moment, there was a sharp rap on the door.

Jo blinked.  Before she’d taken two steps toward the door, it flew open, and Mycroft strode into the flat.

He scanned the room sharply before he turned to his sister, who was sitting on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chest.  He stopped.  Brother and sister stared at each other, and Jo could only imagine what Mycroft was deducing.

In typical fashion, neither of them seemed willing to break the silence.  Jo stood between them and waited. Finally, Mycroft sighed, and Sherlock looked smug.

“It appears that congratulations are in order,” Mycroft said, his voice anything but congratulatory.

Sherlock scowled straight ahead.  “Piss off.”

“My, my.  Mood swings, already?”

 _“Oi,”_ Jo said sharply.  Both Holmeses turned to her like they’d forgotten she was there.  “Watch it, Mycroft.”

Instead of being a little grateful, Sherlock scowled at her.  “You _summoned_ him.”

“Me?   _I_ summoned—”  Jo threw her hands up.  “He’s not a genie!”

“No,” Sherlock muttered under her breath.  “...Wouldn’t even fit in the lamp.”

“I don’t need Doctor Watson’s help to keep tabs on you,” Mycroft said coldly.  He continued to glare at his sister.

Jo finally saw the resemblance between them.

“Sherlock,” said Mycroft.  “How. Did. This. _Happen."_

“Don’t be alarmed.”  She gave her brother a petulant smile.  “It’s to do with sex.”

Mycroft’s mouth became a thin line.  “This is serious, Sherlock. You haven’t considered the implications.”

“Of course I have.”

“No, you _haven’t._  You have enemies,” he snapped.  “As do I. Did you consider that this...this—”

“Child,” Jo supplied.

“—could be used as leverage against both of us?”

Sherlock rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that Uncle Mycroft won’t let that happen,” she said.

Just like that, the anger bled from Mycroft’s face.  They looked at each other for a long moment; then Mycroft sat on the edge of the couch.  “I don’t suppose,” he said, more calmly, “that you would agree to reside in France for the...the duration of your…”

“Pregnancy,” said Jo.

“Yes, thank you Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said tightly.  He looked back at Sherlock, who seemed to consider it briefly.

Or maybe that was Jo’s imagination.

Slowly but firmly, Sherlock shook her head.  “No.”

Mycroft didn’t look surprised.  He nodded, stood, and looked back at Sherlock for a moment. “If you need anything,” he said, “Call me.”

“Yes, alright,” she sighed.

“Sherlock.”  Mycroft put his hand on her shoulder.  Jo wasn’t sure which of them looked more surprised.

 _“Call,"_ said Mycroft.  “Promise you’ll call.”

Something seemed to pass between them; Jo had the strange feeling that she was intruding on a conversation.

Without a single snarky comment, Sherlock nodded.  “I promise.”

And Mycroft was satisfied.  He smoothed his jacket and stood; Jo followed him to the door.

Before he left, he turned to her.  “...Take care of my sister, Doctor Watson.” The gentle expression on his face was suddenly hidden away.  Then he was gone.

Jo shut the door behind him.  “Well.  That was…” She didn’t want to say _weird,_  because that wasn’t right.  But it was close enough.

She turned to find Sherlock already curled back up on the couch, tapping on her phone.  It buzzed every few seconds.

“...Who the hell do you keep _texting?”_

Sherlock didn’t answer her question.  Her eyes never left the screen.  “Call Lestrade. See if he has anything new.”

Jo stared at Sherlock.  Then she snorted. “Uh, yeah.  No.”

Sherlock’s head snapped up.  “Pardon?”

“No active crime scenes for you,” said Jo.  “Doctor's orders.”

The look of betrayal on Sherlock’s face was almost comical.  “Why?” she asked, and Jo could hear the beginnings of that roaring in her head.

_“Because you’re pregnant, you idiot!”_

“Lestrade doesn’t know that.”

“Yes, actually _,_ he does.”

_“Would you stop telling everyone!”_

“Oh calm down, there’s no one left for me to te—”

A gasp came from the doorway.  They both turned.

Mrs. Hudson nearly dropped the plate of cookies in her hand.  “...you’re pregnant?  Oh, Sherlock!"

Jo sighed.  Sherlock groaned.

Seven more months to go.

 


End file.
